slikmar

Brain cells die. Skin cells die and even hair cells die. But the fat cells in my stomach must have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior since they seem to have eternal life.

It's not a bad movie but it's not great. i could have done with a lot less flerkin content and more of the main characters. 
 
For reasons I can't understand, a large portion of the usual MCU audience has antipathy towards Brie Larson and have attacked both Captain Marvel movies sight unseen. The Marvels, IMO, is better than Thor 2 and 4 and Incredible Hulk and as good as Iron Man 3 and GotG 2. It has flaws but MCU fatigue may be more to blame than the quality of the film.

Harmon got it totally, utterly wrong if he thought Marvels needed less Ms. Marvel.  I shall elaborate within this spoiler tag:
 
 
IMO of course.

Quite possibly the best photobomb ever--

The Marvels (no spoilers).  Verdict: Flawed but worth seeing in the theater, unless female leads bother you.  Better than Quantumania, actually a bit better than the first Captain Marvel.  Relatively short at 1:45.  One mid-credits scene.
 
Once again I watched a movie so you don't have to!  I went into this with probably the lowest expectations of any MCU film, just based on its disastrous financial performance and the knowledge that it needed at least one rewrite.  And it is by no means among the best of the MCU, but it wasn't bad.  It had some character development, even some vulnerability out of Carol Danvers.  It did veer hard into the silly a couple of times, but that was a welcome change from the grimness of the first CM.  And like so many MCU films the villain is forgettable--even in the comics this particular villain had like a six issue run. 
 
Still the biggest flaw of the film is that while the personal challenges are there, we don't get to see them until halfway through the movie.  And the marketing campaigns completely failed to pick up on them at all, which in my opinion is why the movie isn't doing so hot.  But the relationships developing between the Marvels, though imperfectly executed, are the main reason to see this movie.

Oh, I see you've met my gaming group.

If a typical movie portrayed a typical PC group over-analyzing micro decisions, we would likely have stopped producing movies a long time ago.

But MCU Strange is an arrogant idiot. His whole origin was him being an arrogant idiot. He always thinks he's the smartest person in the room (most of the time, he is), and there's nothing he can't control. Multiverse of Madness was the start of him learning some genuine humility. Tony Stark was an arrogant idiot, until near the end of his life. Thor was an arrogant idiot until he lost his godhood.
 
Strange did have the start and end points finalized, Peter kept wanting him to change the terms, and distracting him. That doesn't change that Strange was too cocky by half to attempt the spell and ignore Wong's warnings. Yet that's consistent with how the MCU has portrayed him.

"I'm the greatest, I'm number one!"
 
"To me, you look like number two, know what I mean?"
 
"What DOES he mean, Miss Skeffington?"
 
"I'll tell you later. It's disgusting."

Anyone who watched Spider-Man: No Way Home can imagine the Green Goblin being a threat. That Goblin is a super-powered Joker, a cunning technical genius who's also a homicidal psychopathic megalomaniac. He exists to spread chaos, terror, death and destruction, and to infect other supers with his delusions of godhood.

You forgot Silver Surfer was part of that. I have always joked when people start talking about most powerful teams that the original defenders were pretty much it. Ultimate energy blaster, Ultimate Brick, Ultimate Mental/Magic. Namor is specialty, but as we all know, a power unto his own.

The way to make the "smaller" threats impactful, is to make them personal. Things that affect the characters directly, people or ideals they genuinely care about. Comics have been doing that for generations. Saving the world, or the universe, didn't end the stories, and subsequent stories usually didn't try to top what came before.
 
Look at the Civil War movie. For all the framework of the Sokovia Accords, and fights among the heroes, the story comes down to deeply personal matters of love, trust, grief, guilt, and revenge. At the end of the movie the Avengers were broken, but the rest of the world did not significantly change. But I have yet to hear anyone argue that CW was not one of the most impactful MCU films.

I admit, I would like to see a few more superhero movies/shows where the stakes were city wide or smaller. We don't have to save the world, or galaxy, or multiverse EVERYtime. To be fair, they haven't always but still, it seems a bit lopsided to me.

This could fall under Funny, Creepy, or Foods threads...
 
 

Padres owner Peter Seidler has died, age 63.  NYT reports he'd had 2 battles with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and had another procedure over the summer...no details.  
 
Condolences to the family.  Questions about how this will affect the Padres moving forward.

I will repost this when the Christmas 2023 thread is initiated.

Funnily, I kept thinking he would end up a trainer for the Miami Dolphins, which feels like would work too.

Just got in from seeing The Marvels. It's a solid entry, not their greatest work, but nothing to be ashamed of.
 
The action is good although Carol's power level isn't as consistent as I'd like.
 
Kamala and Monica are excellent, Carol and Fury are good, Kamala's family feels very real and the villain actually has a valid motivation if somewhat extreme methods.
 
I'll score it a 7.5 out of 10.